Tri-UMPH, meaning Triennially United to Make Poverty History is a student-organised, whole school music festival that aims to raise money to fund education scholarships for students in East Timor. Five schools (Clonard College, St. Joseph’s College, Sacred Heart College, St. Ignatius and Iona) come together, every three years, to get their dancing shoes on and support a good cause.
Established in 2008, Tri-UMPH was set to occur again this year so, 12 months ago an amazing group of people were put together to create the 2022 Tri-UMPH committee, who would be the voices for the plan, design, coordination, and development of the festival.
Out of all the members in the crew, nine girls were from Clonard! Three Year 12s, three Year 11s and three Year 10s, including Jessica Caine, Georgia Ioannidis, Charli Meehan, Keeley Jones, Charlotte Horan, Cinnamon Sarkis, Kate O’Donoghue, Charli Hopper and Elliotte Betts. Every Thursday afternoon after school, the girls would head up to St. Joseph’s to meet with the students from the other schools and discuss their progression in their respective roles as well as any complications, ideas, or thoughts they had on how to further develop their vision of Tri-UMPH.
However, with the COVID-19 climate rising, initial plans of gathering all five schools together in one place was no longer viable and with the tough call to postpone Tri-UMPH, a new solution to still have Tri-UMPH, but on smaller scale was sought. The new solution was called Tri-UMPH Lite! Each school would hold their own version of Tri-UMPH Lite. The same things would happen, on the same day (just a bit smaller than previously thought), and most importantly, for the same reason.
The Clonard girls got straight into action, taking all the work they had done and adjusting to suit what they envisioned for Clonard’s version of Tri-UMPH. Suddenly, September 9 rolled around and the Tri-UMPH Lite day had come. There were student performances on Tullow Stage as well as donuts, Tri-UMPH merchandise and sausages for sale with all proceeds going to East Timor. The music was pumping, the sun was shining, donuts and sausages were quickly being consumed and looking around there wasn’t a person not smiling. The positive atmosphere on Tullow Grass on September 9 far exceeded what the Tri-UMPH girls could’ve hoped for and every student and teacher getting behind the cause made all those challenges faced behind the scenes, worthwhile.
Thank you to the students who performed and all those who purchased merchandise, food and made donations. Thank you also to the amazing staff and volunteers who made the day a huge success. We couldn’t have done it without you.
Written by Tri-UMPH leaders
